A Short Walk
by Sparf
Summary: Inuyasha thinks back over the several weeks since Kagome arrived in his time. This is a short piece that I just did because I felt like writing and Inuyasha is a very sympathetic character for me. And I know now it wasn't Inuyasha who slashed Kikyou.


            "How can she just lay there and sleep like that?"

            "Well, Lord Inuyasha, you must admit that she has been under a great deal of stress since arriving here," replied a small, kimono-clad flea. He was called Myouga, and he had once been the guardian of the tomb of Inuyasha's demon father. He had joined Inuyasha's and Kagome's quest to find the sacred Shikon jewel shards after Inuyasha's brother Sesshomaru began to seek out his father's sword, the Tetsusaiga. Though Inuyasha would never admit this to the insect, Myouga did seem to come in handy on occasion.

            "Stress? Yeah right. I'm the one who should be stressed," said Inuyasha, exasperated, "Ever since we met she's been nothing but trouble. If it weren't for her, I'd already have the Shikon jewel and be a full-fledged demon." The half-demon's brow furrowed and the two rounded, doglike ears atop his head flattened against his long blue hair. "But _she_ had to show up from the _future_ and make my life a living hell."

            "Ah, with all…due respect, Lord Inuyasha," replied Myouga, "If it weren't for her, you'd still be stuck to a tree in the forest by an arrow."

            Inuyasha, who was holding Myouga in his hand, smashed the flea with his other fist. "Shaddup, what do you know? I'd have been revived eventually anyway."

            Myouga just groaned in reply before being dropped to the floor of the hut by his master. Inuyasha strode, irritated, from the hut, leaving Myouga to keep watch over the sleeping Kagome. He chanced one look back and saw Kagome with a slight smile on her face. If only he slept that well.

            He thought back over the past few weeks, wondering why in the world something like this had to happen to _him_. It wasn't as if his life weren't difficult enough as it was. His sleep was always plagued with nightmares. Sometimes they were of his brother, Sesshomaru, other times, the humans of Inuyasha's childhood home who had made him an outcast to everyone except his own mother. Oh how they loved to tease the little dog-boy. More recently, his dreams had turned to Kikyou. It was those dreams that hurt the worst, and it was mostly Inuyasha's fault that they did.

            For he had not always wanted to become a full demon. Once, he had loved a human. Like his father before him, Inuyasha had fallen in love with a great mortal beauty. He had been ready to give up all his powers for her, and live out his days as nothing but a mortal being. Then that demon had played Inuyasha and Kikyou for fools in an attempt to steal the Shikon jewel. In his final effort to steal the jewel, Inuyasha consigned himself to a lifetime of torturous pain.

His father had been a powerful demon, Inuyoukai, Lord of the Western Lands. His mother, on the other hand, had been a mere human. It was of her that Inuyasha still possessed memories. She had been a great beauty among her kind, of high birth, and very kind. Her death had affected Inuyasha in a way nothing else could. Until his love for Kikyou, that is. It was his father's particular weakness, one that Inuyasha had fully inherited. 

            The half-demon, being attacked by villagers from the moment he set foot near the shrine, was too highly tensed for attack. Inuyasha gasped sharply as the memory flooded back to him like an unstoppable river. He had feigned a retreat to the forest and circled to  the shadows of a building at the rear of the jewel shrine, where he prepared to slip inside and make his wish. He would be a full demon, and leave Kikyou far behind him, a part of a painful past that would no longer be his cross to bear. He heard a quick footstep behind him, and he knew that he had been discovered. If it was a fight they wanted, he'd give them one they'd never forget.

            What he saw when he looked for the source of the noise was almost enough to make him scream. It was…himself… His lookalike was preparing to slip into the shrine. Inuyasha growled. He wasn't about to let that impostor have his jewel. Before he could move, Kikyou appeared and tried to stop "Inuyasha" from making such a mistake.

            "Iron reaver _soul stealer_!" the false Inuyasha  cried, spinning around and swinging his claws. As a shrine maiden, Kikyou was spared the full force of the demon's attack by virtue of an ancient enchantment to ward off evil spirits, but such enchantments were of little use against so powerful an attack. Inuyasha glanced at the impostor's claws, horrified. They were covered with Kikyou's blood. 

            It might have been better if she had died then and there. Inuyasha felt his heart split in two as she whimpered and called out to him. For a brief instant, he thought to take her to her fellow villagers, to allow her to be seen by a doctor. The call of a sentinel, alerting the villagers to his presence near the shrine, forced Inuyasha to make a choice.

He did. He left Kikyou, who had since fallen unconscious, in order to claim the jewel.

            Without realizing it, Inuyasha had wandered into the woods outside the village, and wound up in front of the very tree where he had once been imprisoned. His red kimono and his hair blew backwards in the gentle breeze, as if pulling him away from the past. That Kagome…she looked a lot like Kikyou, and the old priestess from the village had said that she was Kikyou reincarnated. It dawned on the half-demon that, perhaps, the reason he was so nasty towards her was that he didn't want to have to face Kikyou, either in body or in spirit, after what he had done.

            The wind whistled around him as he sat down on the soft, moss-covered forest floor. Everything that was happening defied belief. Throughout his life, Inuyasha had never had a single easy moment, and after the death of his mother there was no one he really trusted enough to confide in until Kikyou. Everyone he got close to died. That was one reason that Inuyasha would, at one time, have liked to be fully human. At least he would have hope of an eternity after dying. Instead, he was forced to live the way he did, abrasive, cold, and wisecracking. 

            Inuyasha stared upward at the tree that had been his grave for fifty years. He had always been an outcast, hated and shunned by demons and humans alike. He truly didn't belong in either world, and would have gone on as he had, until Kagome fell into the well and arrived in his time. She was not like the others. She shared the same ability that Kikyou had possessed. The ability to ignore the obvious outer differences. The only thing that kept Kagome at a distance from Inuyasha was his own personality. He had overheard her talking about him one day. After all, those dog ears of his weren't just for looks. He had distinctly heard the word 'friend'. She considered him a friend, no matter how badly he had treated her.

            Inuyasha looked up at the stars as he rose to his feet. A shooting star flew past, burning its way to the earth. Maybe it was just old superstition, but he made a silent wish before beginning his walk back to the hut.

            Kagome was still asleep when he arrived, and Myouga had apparently wandered off to find a midnight snack. Inuyasha saw that Kagome shivered in the cool night air. He admired her for a moment, and, with a smile, pulled her blanket over her, then lay down on his own mat and slowly drifted off to sleep.

            Kagome popped one eye open and turned to look at him. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep. If only he'd be that way when he was awake.

Inuyoukai


End file.
